Method for implementing a virtual community of investors having investment portfolios

ABSTRACT

A system and method for providing analytical tools for a community of investors having investment portfolios. A first tool provides an indication of a user&#39;s selection effectiveness regarding the user&#39;s choice of investments relative to those sectors in which the investment resides, and relative to a broader market. A second tool allows the user to evaluate the effectiveness of community stimuli on the user&#39;s portfolio. A third tool provides the user the capability to view relationships among a plurality of preferred analysts. With a fourth tool, a user may view a plurality of other analysts the user referred to the community.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.09/739,565, entitled “ANALYTICAL TOOLS FOR A COMMUNITY OF INVESTORSHAVING INVESTMENT PORTFOLIOS”, filed on Dec. 15, 2000, and which isincorporated herein in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

The long bull market of recent years has lead to a proliferation ofon-line investors that are technologically savvy and able to availthemselves of vast research resources that the Internet provides. Thisproliferation has been reflected in increasing ranks of day traders andoverall security volume attributable to non-institutional investors.Various web sites allow on-line investors to trade securities. Some websites provide investors tools to monitor their holdings. These tools aretypically a pie chart showing the sector breakdown of stock or mutualfund holdings, a simple graph showing the historical performance orprice of stocks and mutual funds over a period of time, and a simplegraph showing the increase in a hypothetical investment of $10,000 inone or more stocks or mutual funds. As more investors are endeavoring tocontrol their own investments, new and better tools are needed to allowinvestors to understand the performance of their investments.

SUMMARY

A system and method for providing analytical tools for a community ofinvestors having investment portfolios. A first tool provides anindication of a user's selection effectiveness regarding the user'schoice of investments relative to those sectors in which the investmentresides, and relative to a broader market. A second tool allows the userto evaluate the effectiveness of community stimuli on the user'sportfolio. A third tool provides the user the capability to viewrelationships among a plurality of preferred analysts. With a fourthtool, a user may view a plurality of other analysts the user referred tothe community.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention is illustrated by way of example and not by way oflimitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which likereferences indicate similar elements. It should be noted that referencesto “an” or “one” embodiment in this disclosure are not necessarily tothe same embodiment, and such references mean at least one.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system of one embodiment of theinvention.

FIG. 2A is a flow diagram of operation of one embodiment of a tool toanalyze the effectiveness of selecting investments relative to a sectorand relative to a broader market according to an embodiment of theinvention.

FIG. 2B is an embodiment of a graph indicating the effectiveness ofselecting investments relative to a sector and relative to a broadermarket.

FIG. 3A is a flow diagram of operation of one embodiment of a tool toanalyze the effectiveness of community stimuli in selecting investmentsaccording to an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 3B is an embodiment of a graph indicating the effectiveness ofcommunity stimuli in selecting investments.

FIG. 4A is a flow diagram of operation of one embodiment of a tool toanalyze the relationship between investors in a community of investorsaccording to an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 4B is an embodiment of a graph indicating the relationship betweeninvestors in a community of investors.

FIG. 5A is a flow diagram of operation of one embodiment of a tool toanalyze the referral relationship between investors in a community ofinvestors according to an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 5B is an embodiment of a graph indicating the referral relationshipbetween investors in a community of investors.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

To increase a user's understanding of how a portfolio of investments orsingle investments are performing, and to provide other usefulinformation a set of analytical tools may be provided to an investor.The investor may be an Internet investor that connects to a serverrunning analyzer software that provides the analytical tools.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system of one embodiment of theinvention. A server node 100 is coupled to a wide area network (WAN) 102such as the Internet. Also coupled to WAN 102 are a plurality of clientnodes 104. Client nodes 104 may be a personal computer (PC), a WANenabled phone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a computer tablet, aset top box, or any other device with which a user may connect to a WAN.Server node 100 may include database 106 and analyzer 108. The servernode 100 includes web server software 112 to serve web pages andinformation to, and to receive information from client nodes 104. Theserver node 100 receives information such as investment preferences,user profiles, real and virtual or hypothetical buy information, realand virtual or hypothetical sell information, referral information, andother information, including requests to view another user's investmentpreferences, submitted by a virtual community made of a population ofusers that connects from client nodes 104 through WAN 102 to the servernode 100. The virtual community is based around investments, includingsecurities investment, equities investment, etc.

Each member of the population that makes up the virtual communityinitially creates a personal profile and becomes a member of thecommunity via server node 100. This may be achieved by the server nodeproviding a web page or sequence of web pages in hypertext mark uplanguage (HTML) that prompt the user to provide the appropriateinformation. Any references to prompting or providing web pages hereinare achieved in this manner and may include a plurality of userinterface items and user interface techniques, including, but limited tobuttons, sliders, text entry fields, JAVA® applets, and the like.

Server node 100 may store personal profiles, community information, buyinformation, sell information, referral information, investorpreferences, and a plurality of securities information and equitiesinformation in the database 106. Database 106 may be a relationaldatabase such as an Oracle-style database or may include one or more ofsuch databases with or without links between them. To obtain values andother information concerning securities, equities, and otherinvestments, server node 100 may communicate with third party databases(not shown) via WAN 102 or via a direct connection.

Users are referred to interchangeably herein as “analysts” and“members.” Investments may include and may be referred to as securities,stocks, mutual funds, equities, and the like. In other embodiments,investments may also include any property, obligation, note, orownership interest in anything. In one embodiment, the server node mayprovide for the formation of a mutual fund formed by screening theaggregation of member investment preferences. In this manner, a fund isestablished based on the intelligence of the community. Investmentpreferences are stocks or other investments the user prefers and actionsthe user wishes to have taken with regard to stocks or other investmentssuch a buy, sell, hold, sell short, buy long, etc. Preferences may bethought of as recommendations for investing including associated actionsto be taken concerning the particular investment.

In one embodiment, to encourage community members to submit their bestinvestment preferences, a reward structure may be established to rewardthose members submitting the best performing investment preferences overa predetermined period of time such as daily, weekly or some otherestablished time frame. In one embodiment, the reward structure furtherincludes an incentive for referring members who subsequently areidentified as having selected the best performing investment picks. Tothat end, the analyzer 108 may rank investment preferences submitted byeach analyst to establish which analysts should receive the reward foreach reward period. In one embodiment, the ranking is based on acomparison between the real world performance of all the analysts'preferences compared with the performance of all other analystspreferences during a particular time window. In this way, members mayalso be placed in a category of top performing investors. Analyzer 108may also maintain a list of top performing investors made up of thoseinvestors whose preferences perform in a top range over a period oftime. The range may be the top 1%, top 5%, top 10%, etc. The period oftime may be quarterly, monthly, daily, weekly, past 30 days, past 60days, etc.

In one embodiment, the server node includes analyzer software thatprovides the processing needed to achieve the analytical tools discussedbelow. The analyzer may interact with and communicate with one or moredatabases, one or more web servers, and other specialized servers (notshown) to provide web pages, receive and provide data, and providegraphics to achieve the analytical tools discussed below.

FIG. 2A is a flow diagram of operation of one embodiment of a tool toanalyze the effectiveness of selecting investments relative to a sectorand relative to a broader market according to an embodiment of theinvention. The server receives a plurality of stock holdings and/orother investments from a user, as shown in block 200. The server maythen receive a request from a user to determine how the plurality ofstocks performed relative to a sector to which the stock belongs andrelative to other stocks within the sector, as shown in block 210.Sectors may be well known categories of stocks, or any variety andgranularity of categories that may be applied to the particularinvestment type or class. The server then calculates how each of thestock holdings performed relative to each other and relative to thesector to which the stock belongs, as shown in block 220. The serveralso calculates how each sector performed relative to other sectors, asshown in block 230. In one embodiment, the calculating in blocks 220 and230 may be accomplished by the analyzer in the server. In thisembodiment, all pertinent data may be obtained from third partydatabases and/or from the server's local database(s). In anotherembodiment, the server may serve an applet to the client (user) to dothe calculating on the user's computer. In this embodiment, allpertinent data is maintained by and obtained from the user's computer.

The server then provides an indication of the user's effectiveness atchoosing stocks within a sector and relative to a broader market byproviding a graph to the user showing how each stock within each sectorperformed relative to other stocks in that sector and showing how eachsector performed relative to other sectors, as shown in block 240. Inanother embodiment, the server may serve an applet to the client (user)to do display the graph on the user's computer. In one embodiment, theperiod of time for which these calculations are performed defaults to aserver specified amount of time such as 30 days, 120 days, annually,etc. In another embodiment, the amount of time over which thesecalculations are made is user selectable. Sector performance may becomputed according any well known methods.

FIG. 2B is an embodiment of a graph indicating the effectiveness ofselecting investments relative to a sector and relative to a broadermarket. In one embodiment, graph 250 is a horizontal bar graph thatshows sectors 254 and their performance 256. In various embodiments,performance may be denoted by text labels such as the trio of bottom,middle and high performers; the sextet of poor, fair, average, good,better, best; etc. In other embodiments, performance may be denoted by apercentage change in share price, or a star rating such as from one starto five stars. As can be seen in graph 250, extremes are shown such asstock 260, a bad performer in the bottom sector, and stock, 264, a stockthat outperformed other stocks in the sector and outperformed thesector. The graph also shows that sector 266 outperformed sector 252.This graph shows an investor the performance of the investor's stocksrelative to the sector in which the stock is categorized, relative toother stocks within the sector, and relative to other of the investor'sstocks in the investor's portfolio, and also shows the investor theperformance of sectors relative to each other. The graph also providesthe user an indication of how each particular stock in the portfolioperformed relative the broader market by showing the performance of thevarious sector. In another embodiment, one or more well known indicessuch as the Russell 2000 or the Dow Jones Industrial Average may beprovided for additional comparison. In one embodiment, inclusion ofaverages may be user selectable. In one embodiment, the user may selectwhether all sectors will be displayed or only those sectors in which theuser has invested.

FIG. 3A is a flow diagram of operation of one embodiment of a tool toanalyze the effectiveness of community stimuli in selecting investmentsaccording to an embodiment of the invention. The server first obtainsuser profiles, as shown in block 300, and creates a virtual community ofusers, as shown in block 302. The server then obtains initial investmentinformation from a user to create a portfolio, as shown in block 304.This initial investment information may be a portfolio of securities orother investments designated by a ticker symbol, a purchase price, andmay include a purchase date, a number of shares purchased, a commissionpaid and other information. In one embodiment, this initial investmentinformation may include a motivation information by which a userspecifies whether the purchase of the investment was made responsive toa community stimuli such as the preferences of a particular communitymember. The server then receives buy and sell information from a userincluding a motivation information used to track whether the transactionwas based on information provided by another member of the community, asshown in block 306. h one embodiment, the motivation information may beinferred by the server such that the server may recognize when a userbuys or sells a particular investment after viewing the preferences ofanother member regarding that investment. That is, in variousembodiments, the motivation information may be server determined orprovided by a user.

The server may receive a request from a user to provide an indication ofthe effect of community stimuli on the user's investment portfolio, asshown in block 308. The server then calculates a return for the user'sinvestment over a period of time, as shown in block 310. The server thencreates a partial portfolio of the user's portfolio by excluding thoseinvestment bought or sold pursuant to community stimuli, as shown inblock 312. The server calculates a return for the partial portfolio overa period of time, as shown in block 314. The server then provides agraph to the user showing the portfolio return compared to the partialportfolio return over a period of time to indicate the effectiveness ofcommunity stimuli on the investor's portfolio, as shown in block 316.

FIG. 3B is an embodiment of a graph indicating the effectiveness ofcommunity stimuli in selecting investments. Graph 318 depicts the netasset value 320 of a portfolio of securities over a period of time 322.A first line 330 indicates the value of the user's portfolio, and asecond line 332 indicates the value of a subset of the user's portfolioexcluding those investments made based on community stimuli. In thisway, the user may easily see whether the performance of the user'sportfolio has been enhanced or degraded by the inclusion of investmentsmade pursuant to community stimuli.

FIG. 4A is a flow diagram of operation of one embodiment of a tool toanalyze the relationship between investors in a community of investorsaccording to an embodiment of the invention. After prompting for andreceiving a plurality of user profiles, as shown in block 400, theserver may receive a user's request to view another user's investmentpreferences, as shown in block 402. The server then provides a seconduser's investment preferences to the first user responsive to receivingthe request from the first user, as shown in block 404. The servertracks each user's correlation with each other user such that anassociation between all user's is maintained, as shown in block 406. Inone embodiment, this association may be server determined by the servermaintaining a list of the users whose preferences a user visits. Inanother embodiment, the association may be maintained only if the userbases a trade on another user's preferences. In yet another embodiment,a user may be provided the ability to add other investors to a list offavorite investors which is maintained by the server. In this way, theassociation is based in the user selected favorites list.

The server may then receive a request from a user to display relatedother users, as shown in block 408. In one embodiment, the user mayselect a degree of relationship so that only users within that degree ofrelationship will be displayed. In another embodiment, the server has apredefined degree of relationship that will limit the display. Theserver then displays user's associated with the user, as shown in block410. In the display, the serve may signify those users to which the useris highly correlated and those users that have been determined to have ahigher rate of their return on investments than other users. In oneembodiment, the server may allow the user to view the relationshipbetween any one user and all other users, within a degree ofrelationship.

FIG. 4B is an embodiment of a graph indicating the relationship betweeninvestors in a community of investors. Graph 430 shows the associationbetween a user 432 and other users based on the association maintainedby the server. In one embodiment, related users are denoted by a firststyle of line such as line 442, and highly related users are denoted bya second style of line such as line 444. In one embodiment, those userswho are top performers may be denoted as such by a graphical accent suchas a flame 440. The result is what may be considered a constellation.The example depicted in graph 430 is limited to three levels ofrelatedness. In various embodiments, the levels or degrees ofrelatedness displayed may be system dependent or user selectable. In oneembodiment, the graph represents the user's favorite other users andtheir favorites' favorites, etc. In this embodiment, an indication ofwhether the user's investing style is highly related may also bepresented. In another embodiment, the graph may also indicate thoseuser's to whom the user's investing style is related or highly related.In one embodiment, a user may view the degree of relationship of oneuser to all other users by clicking on the particular user displayed inthe constellation, such as, for example, clicking on any user in graph430 may cause a relationship graph of the particular user to bedisplayed.

FIG. 5A is a flow diagram of operation of one embodiment of a tool toanalyze the referral relationship between investors in a community ofinvestors according to an embodiment of the invention. After promptingfor and receiving a plurality of user profiles such that a virtualcommunity is established, as shown in block 500, the server may providethe user the option to refer new users to become members of the virtualcommunity, as shown in block 502. The server then receives this referralrequest from the user, as shown in block 504. The server may then takeappropriate action to respond to the referral request. The server tracksreferral requests from all users such that a record of relatednessbetween all users is maintained, as shown in block 506. The server mayreceive a request to provide a representation of all users to whom theuser is related, as shown in block 508. In response, the server providesan hierarchical graphical display of the relatedness of the user toother users to the user, as shown in block 510.

FIG. 5B is an embodiment of a graph indicating the referral relationshipbetween investors in a community of investors. Graph 514 shows theassociation between a user 516 and other users based on the hierarchicalrecord maintained by the server. Related users are denoted by a linesuch as line 522. User 516 is shown to be related to various other users520 via lines 522. In one embodiment, those users that are topperformers may be denoted as such by a graphical accent such as a flame524. The result is what may be considered a constellation. The exampledepicted in graph 514 is limited to two levels of relatedness. Invarious embodiments, the levels or degrees of relatedness displayed maybe system dependent or user selectable.

In the foregoing specification, the invention has been described withreference to specific embodiments thereof. It will, however, be evidentthat various modifications and changes can be made thereto withoutdeparting from the broader spirit and scope of the invention as setforth in the appended claims. The specification and drawings are,accordingly, to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictivesense.

1. A computer-implemented method for a virtual community, saidcomputer-implemented method comprising: accepting a set of investmentpreferences from a plurality of community members; receiving a firstrequest from a first community member to view said set of investmentpreferences of a second community member, recording said first request,and displaying said set of investment preferences of said secondcommunity member to said first community member; and receiving a secondrequest from a third community member to display related other users anddisplaying a set of community members represented as nodes and a set ofrelationships between community members as connections between saidnodes.
 2. The computer-implemented method as set forth in claim 1wherein a first relationship type in said set of relationships betweencommunity members comprises records of when said community membersrequest to view said set of investment preferences of other communitymembers.
 3. The computer-implemented method as set forth in claim 1further comprising: allowing any community member to specify any othercommunity member as a favorite community member; and recording saidfavorite community member specifications; wherein a second relationshiptype in said set of relationships between community members comprisessaid favorite community member specifications.
 4. Thecomputer-implemented method as set forth in claim 1 further comprising:allowing said first community member to specify a trade based upon saidset of investment preferences of said second community member; andrecording said trade based upon said set of investment preferences ofsaid second community member; wherein a third relationship type in saidset of relationships between community members comprises said tradesbased upon investment preferences of other community members.
 5. Thecomputer-implemented method as set forth in claim 1 further comprising:calculating an investment performance rate for each community memberbased upon each community member's set of investment preferences.
 6. Thecomputer-implemented method as set forth in claim 5 wherein displayingsaid set of community members represented as nodes and said set ofrelationships between community members as connections between saidnodes further comprises displaying a graphical accent near communitymembers that are top investment performers according to said investmentperformance rates.
 7. The computer-implemented method as set forth inclaim 1 further comprising: allowing any community member to refer a newcommunity member to said virtual community; and recording said referralsnew community members; wherein a fourth relationship type in said set ofrelationships between community members comprises said referrals of newcommunity members.
 8. The computer-implemented method as set forth inclaim 1 wherein a fifth relationship type in said set of relationshipsbetween community members comprises relationships between two communitymembers that do not have a direct relationship but each have a directrelationship to another community member.
 9. The computer-implementedmethod as set forth in claim 1 wherein said set of investmentpreferences comprises a ticker symbol, a purchase price, and a purchasedate.
 10. The computer-implemented method as set forth in claim 1wherein said set of relationships between community members comprisedifferent relationship types and said different relationship types arerendered as different types of connections between said nodes.
 11. Acomputer-readable medium, said computer-readable medium comprising a setof instructions that, when executed on a computer system, implement amethod for creating a virtual community, said method comprising:accepting a set of investment preferences from a plurality of communitymembers; receiving a first request from a first community member to viewsaid set of investment preferences of a second community member,recording said first request, and displaying said set of investmentpreferences of said second community member to said first communitymember; and receiving a second request from a third community member todisplay related other users and displaying a set of community membersrepresented as nodes and a set of relationships between communitymembers as connections between said nodes.
 12. The computer-readablemedium as set forth in claim 11 wherein a first relationship type insaid set of relationships between community members comprises records ofwhen said community members request to view said set of investmentpreferences of other community members.
 13. The computer-readable mediumas set forth in claim 11 wherein said method further comprises: allowingany community member to specify any other community member as a favoritecommunity member; and recording said favorite community memberspecifications; wherein a second relationship type in said set ofrelationships between community members comprises said favoritecommunity member specifications.
 14. The computer-readable medium as setforth in claim 11 wherein said method further comprises: allowing saidfirst community member to specify a trade based upon said set ofinvestment preferences of said second community member; and recordingsaid trade based upon said set of investment preferences of said secondcommunity member; wherein a third relationship type in said set ofrelationships between community members comprises said trades based uponinvestment preferences of other community members.
 15. Thecomputer-readable medium as set forth in claim 11 wherein said methodfurther comprises: calculating an investment performance rate for eachcommunity member based upon each community member's set of investmentpreferences.
 16. The computer-readable medium as set forth in claim 15wherein displaying said set of community members represented as nodesand said set of relationships between community members as connectionsbetween said nodes further comprises displaying a graphical accent nearcommunity members that are top investment performers according to saidinvestment performance rates.
 17. The computer-readable medium as setforth in claim 11 wherein said method further comprises: allowing anycommunity member to refer a new community member to said virtualcommunity; and recording said referrals new community members; wherein afourth relationship type in said set of relationships between communitymembers comprises said referrals of new community members.
 18. Thecomputer-readable medium as set forth in claim 11 wherein a fifthrelationship type in said set of relationships between community memberscomprises relationships between two community members that do not have adirect relationship but each have a direct relationship to anothercommunity member.
 19. The computer-readable medium as set forth in claim11 wherein said set of investment preferences comprises a ticker symbol,a purchase price, and a purchase date.
 20. The computer-readable mediumas set forth in claim 11 wherein said set of relationships betweencommunity members comprise different relationship types and saiddifferent relationship types are rendered as different types ofconnections between said nodes.